Older people often worry about dementia and while some risks are known, for example alcoholism or stroke, the effects of illness are less clear. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Critical Care ...

Acute kidney injury (AKI), an abrupt or rapid decline in kidney function, is a serious and increasingly prevalent condition that can occur after major infections, major surgery, or exposure to certain medications. The incidence ...

Commonly prescribed sleeping pills/sedatives may increase the risk of contracting pneumonia by as much as 50% and increase the risk of dying from it, suggests research published online in the journal Thorax.

Following an infection, dysregulation of the immune system can result in a systemic inflammatory response and an often fatal condition called severe sepsis or septic shock. Sepsis is not uncommon, yet its cause and underlying ...

A new conjugate vaccine is highly effective (93%) at preventing invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD; meningitis, sepsis, bacteremic pneumonia, and other blood-borne infections) in infants younger than 2 years who are the most ...

Researchers at The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research have discovered that tanshinones, which come from the plant Danshen and are highly valued in Chinese traditional medicine, protect against the life-threatening condition ...

Early changes in liver function detected by novel techniques can identify severe infection (sepsis) hours after onset and so could have important implications for the treatment of patients who are critically ill, according ...

(HealthDay)—Despite differences in processes of care and raw mortality for patients with severe sepsis and septic shock in the United States and Europe, after adjustment, mortality rates are similar, according to a study ...

Sepsis

Sepsis is a serious medical condition characterized by a whole-body inflammatory state (called a systemic inflammatory response syndrome or SIRS) and the presence of a known or suspected infection. The body may develop this inflammatory response to microbes in the blood, urine, lungs, skin, or other tissues. An incorrect layman's term for sepsis is blood poisoning, more aptly applied to Septicemia, below.

Septicemia (also septicæmia [sep⋅ti⋅cæ⋅mi⋅a], or erroneously Septasemia and Septisema) is a related but deprecated (formerly sanctioned medical) term referring to the presence of pathogenic organisms in the blood-stream, leading to sepsis. The term has not been sharply defined. It has been inconsistently used in the past by medical professionals, for example as a synonym of bacteremia, causing some confusion. The present medical consensus is therefore that the term[which?] is problematic and should be avoided.

Sepsis is usually treated in the intensive care unit with intravenous fluids and antibiotics. If fluid replacement is insufficient to maintain blood pressure, specific vasopressor drugs can be used. Artificial ventilation and dialysis may be needed to support the function of the lungs and kidneys, respectively. To guide therapy, a central venous catheter and an arterial catheter may be placed. Sepsis patients require preventive measures for deep vein thrombosis, stress ulcers and pressure ulcers, unless other conditions prevent this. Some patients might benefit from tight control of blood sugar levels with insulin (targeting stress hyperglycemia), low-dose corticosteroids or activated drotrecogin alfa (recombinant protein C).